A Completed Sugarcane Genome Means Benefits for the Bioeconomy

April 17, 2024
By JBEI

The findings could help researchers develop sugarcane with improved sugar production, supplying a feedstock for biofuels and bioproducts.

The Science: Sugarcane is the world’s most harvested crop, and supplies 80% of the world’s sugar. Throughout history, breeders have created new sugarcane varieties in order to improve sugar yields. But these efforts also made sugarcane’s genome extremely complex. Until now, modern sugarcane did not have a fully mapped out genome, making it more difficult for researchers to study the crop. Researchers have now generated, for the first time, a complete genome for a cultivar of sugarcane that is widely used today. 

The Impact: Using a variety of methods, researchers successfully assembled sugarcane’s genome for the first time. In doing this, they were able to identify the genes that provide resistance to brown rust, which was once a major disease affecting sugarcane. A complete sugarcane genome will help scientists develop new varieties of the crop that can produce more sugar per acre. This will benefit the bioeconomy, as sugar is used as a feedstock for making biofuels and bioproducts. Sugarcane residues can also be converted into biofuels and bioproducts. 

Summary: Researchers studied a modern cultivar of sugarcane called R570. Using multiple genetic sequencing techniques, researchers provided a fine-grain description of modern sugarcane’s genome. Their analysis revealed several genetic targets for improving sugarcane. It also revealed the mechanisms of its disease resistance, particularly against brown rust. Their results will assist future efforts to improve sugarcane’s resistance to the disease as well as the engineering of sugarcane varietals that are optimized for bioenergy applications. The techniques used in this study to sequence sugarcane’s genome can be applied to other complex plant genomes.

Publication: Healey, A.L., Garsmeur, O., Lovell, J.T., et al. The complex polyploid genome architecture of sugarcane. Nature (2024). [DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07231-4]

Written by Emily Nelson